


On the Origins of the American Eagle

by Meltha



Category: Muppet Show
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-06
Updated: 2011-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meltha/pseuds/Meltha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam the Eagle looks back on the path that brought him to live with a bunch of weirdos.  Takes place during A Muppet Family Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Origins of the American Eagle

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Marginaliana, who made a very kind donation via the Help_japan group on Livejournal.

“Why am I here?”

It was a rhetorical question, of course, and one Sam tended to ask pretty regularly. However, as he was currently standing in Emily Bear’s kitchen watching three rats scampering across the stove while making a mushroom and cheese omelet (with their feet, no less, a discovery that had made Sam cover his eyes with his wing), it was a fair question.

“Yeeh, vhy ere-a yuoo here-a?” said a familiar voice from behind him.

Sam turned to see the Swedish Chef standing against the opposite wall, holding a pair of lobsters that he was sure would never see the inside of a pot of boiling water.

“You would not understand,” Sam said huffily.

After all, the Chef was a foreigner, with all that implied, including a distinct inability to grasp the great and fine aspirations of the American dream. He couldn’t possibly comprehend the sheer magnitude of passion that had driven Sam forth from the nest, but that had somehow inexplicably ejected him into the bowels of the Muppet Theatre. In all honesty, Sam wasn’t even sure himself how it all occurred.

He’d been a very proper, promising young eaglet back in the nest. Why even now, he could recall his earliest days…

“Samuel Ulysses Eagle, get back into this nest!” cried his mother in her usual dulcet, screeching tones.

“Yes, Mother,” he’d said on that fateful morning when he was still growing into his feathers. He’d been adventurous, attempting to explore the stunning beauty of the American landscape around him, and his lack of restraint had sometimes caused a bit of friction with his dear mother. Granted, as they lived on the top of a large cement tower in a place called Three Mile Island, she may have had some small cause for worry.

“Why can’t you be more like Jefferson?” his mother would say, pointing her beak towards his older brother (really, he’d only managed to chip his way out of the eggshell a whole thirty seconds before Sam did, and it was constantly rubbed in his face).

Jefferson was, as usual, studying his copy of _Great American Eagles and How They Saved Western Civilization_. He was currently pouring over volume 35. Sam had thus far managed only up to volume 27, a cause of much shame.

“I’m sorry,” he said, blushing red beneath his blue feathers, a color combination he was happy to think matched the flag… although of course it also matched the French and British flags as well, which he shuddered at.

“Yes,” his twin sisters Martha and Mary Todd chorused together from their respective perches as they memorized the geographical layout of Delaware on their favorite map. “You should be!”

Sam had sighed. No matter what he did, he was always seen as the rebel in the family, just a tiny bit too liberal, too non-traditional, the last one to be able to recite all the vice presidents in alphabetical order by middle name.

Just at that moment, Sam’s father had arrived back at the nest from a long trip to Washington D.C., toting a large tape recorder in his mouth which he politely spat out.

“I’ve brought a special treat!” he called in his remarkably refined voice. “I took this away from some horrible human teenagers who were using it to listen to rock and roll.”

The last three words were spat out with such loathing that one would think Father had invoked the word _Communist_ , and the reaction of all the other birds in the nest was a shudder of disgust.

“Well done, dear,” mother had said. “That was a public service deserving of a medal!”

“Yes, but what’s even better, I picked up some lovely new tapes from President Nixon’s collection for us to listen to while we dine this evening,” Father said, busily loading the spools. “For some reason, these got thrown into the garbage behind the Rose Garden, purely by accident, of course.”

“Yay!” they all cried in delight, although if someone had been watching very carefully, they might have noticed that Sam’s smile looked just a bit forced.

Nixon was not his favorite president because he’d been the cause of a most embarrassing blunder on Sam’s part. The family had gone on a highly patriotic field trip to hear a replay of the infamous Kennedy-Nixon debates at a local museum, and Sam had been foolish enough to say he thought that Kennedy had sounded better.

“Nonsense!” his father had bellowed. “Nixon was robbed by that ridiculously pretty boy from Massachusetts! This great country would be even greater if only Mr. Nixon had been president much, much sooner rather than that… that… party person! He even smiled! Real politicians don’t smile! Does Washington smile on the quarter? Does Lincoln smile on the penny? Does Jefferson smile on the two dollar bill?”

Everyone had been shaking their heads emphatically until this last one, which caused a bit of consternation as none of them had actually seen a two dollar bill. Sam had sat with his head under his wing for a full hour.

Now, though, he held his tongue as the sweet tones of President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger talking about someplace called Watergate filled the nest.

“Isn’t he just wonderful?” Mother said in awe.

Privately, Sam thought his mother’s expression looked remarkably like those girls’ who ran around after those Beatles characters (English, of course, and with absolutely shocking hair), but he said nothing about it.

“How could someone possibly prefer something as mundane and insipid as music to the great and inspiring words of our Commander in Chief?” Father said as Kissinger mentioned something very odd about the FBI.

“Well, there’s John Phillips Sousa,” Sam said before he could stop himself.

Martha, Mary Todd, Jefferson, Mother, and Father turned towards him with looks of disbelief.

“Son, I realize you have some crazy notions about the arts being ‘legitimate’ and all that,” Father said, drawing air quotes around the word with his wingtips, “but with the exception of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and perhaps some of the works of Rosemary Clooney, creativity is vastly overrated.”

“I’m sorry, Father, but I must disagree,” Sam said, his back ramrod straight.

The rest of the family emitted a collective gasp.

“Did you just contradict me?” Father said, and Sam was suddenly aware of just how big his wingspan was.

“Respectfully, yes, Sir,” Sam replied. “I mean no insult, but some of the arts are really rather wonderful. I’ve always liked Mr. Lawrence Welk, for example, and the old movies with Irene Castle or Fred Astaire dancing, they… well, they make me feel… happy.”

Mother’s mouth hung open in shock (and Sam noticed that she hadn’t flossed properly), and Mary Todd appeared to have fainted dead away.

“I never thought my own son would be so—so—so taken with perversity and stupidity!” Father shouted, steam practically coming from his ears. “Welk and Castle and Astaire are probably all secretly planted Communist spies, you realize, trying to enslave the American people with their sinful and slothful creations!”

“I do not think so,” Sam said, puffing out his chest melodramatically.

“They you can _darn_ well get out of my nest!” Father yelled.

Whether it was the use of the atrocious swear word or the meaning behind it, Sam felt a sting in his eyes, but he turned with dignity, spread his wings wide, and fluttered off into the dying sunset as the tape recorder came to an end just 18 minutes after it had started.

“He’ll be back by next week,” Sam heard Jefferson mutter as he flew away.

But he wasn’t. He had alighted in New York City, thinking perhaps in Lady Liberty’s shadow he might find someplace to call home. Unfortunately, the park rangers drove him off from his newly constructed nest in the statue’s crown (no matter how persuasively he argued that having a real live eagle living on the Statue of Liberty was poetic symmetry, they just didn’t understand). Consequently, he had lowered himself to living in Central Park, squeezed into an old underpass and feeling dirty, miserable, and, as hard as it was for him to believe, lonely.

One day, after having sniffed disdainfully at a pair of hippies who smelled decidedly funny (and if he’d sniffed a bit too deeply, perhaps that explained what happened next), he heard strains of music wafting through the morning air. Specifically, he was hearing “America the Beautiful” being warbled in a none-too-steady voice, but one could almost feel the pure intent in it. Sam had followed the sound, not daring to be hopeful but too depressed not to grasp at the thinnest of straws. At last, he came to a little clearing near one of the paths, and there stood a bear in a pink and white bow tie and a fedora.

Sam had rather been hoping for a resurrected Lincoln, or at least Chester A. Arthur, but for some reason he couldn’t help, if not smiling, at least not frowning quite so much.

“Hi!” called the bear cheerfully when he saw the eagle standing in the clearing.

“Good morning,” he replied, bowing with gravity. “That’s one of my favorite songs.”

“Aw, thanks!” the bear said in a squeaky, nasal voice. “I don’t hit the high notes so good, but we’re working on a Fourth of July pageant at the theatre, and I’m trying to get this up to scratch so those two old cranks who sit in the balcony won’t be able to complain so much.”

“A theatre?” Sam said, curiosity piqued. “And one interested in historical and cultural pursuits dealing with traditional American themes?”

“Uh… yeah?” the bear said, not sounding entirely sure. “Say, are you looking for a job?”

“Perhaps,” Sam said evasively.

“Well, maybe you should talk to Kermit. He’s the boss, and my friend. Actually, we’re all friends at the Muppet Theatre,” the bear said. “We’re looking for someone to introduce a few of the acts, and you’ve got a nice speaking voice and all.”

A job, in the arts, in a theatre, with people who actually liked one another? Sam couldn’t quite comprehend all of this suddenly appearing in front of him. It was a bit like a dream.

“I think perhaps I shall. I am called Sam the Eagle, by the way,” he said as he walked beside the odd little bear.

“I’m Fozzie,” the bear replied, shaking his hand a little too enthusiastically. “Pleased to meet ya!”

Sam raised an eyebrow, but he kept on walking towards what would become his new home, and, if he was honest about it, his new family. He’d managed to get Wayne and Wanda booked for the show, and he tried his hardest to keep up the cultural gravity of this bunch of strange people, but as much as he was horrified, shocked, and stunned by the perpetual parade of idiocy that passed for a show by the Muppets, he never left.

They might all be weirdos, but they were _his_ weirdos.

“So, Chef, how exactly did you wind up coming to join this cavalcade of insane loiterers?” Sam asked, trying to ignore the chickens who were starting to molt into the leftover orange juice.

“Vell, it's a strunge-a stury ebuoot a seeelur, un oostereech, a fery lerge-a incheeleda, und a Svede-a veet a dreem,” the Chef said, looking out the window at the freshly fallen Christmas snow.

“I… see…,” said Sam as a herd of tap-dancing sheep pranced across the kitchen linoleum.

They all had their own stories, but somehow, when they got woven together, they fit almost perfectly, kind of like the colors in a rainbow. And as the lobsters pulled tiny pistols out of their gaucho hats and escaped out the back door, just as Sam had suspected they would, he thought that “almost perfectly” was good enough for him.


End file.
